On reading the accusation and Evan's reply, if neither party is misrepresenting what happened or their view of it, Evan's has clearly acted inapproperiately but might not have realized this. Most of "her" complaints that do not concern the physical "hugging" and so forth are clearly unjudgeable without perceiving the tone of the situation. A case of Aspergers, perhaps?

from the report-Apparently he provided evidence such as emails etc to the external investigators which didn't match very well with her account so they cleared him on everything except showing the fruit-bat article.

Silly. If a person lies in such amounts about something like this, the "case" should just be dropped. If he has evidence, he should sue her for slander, or whatever the equivalent legal process is in Ireland.

Not really, those laws are a legal fiction anyway (using literary term here, not judgical one); otherwise pretty much most religious group would have to be immediatelly prosecuted against...most of the other.Such laws serve mostly the dominant faith. Or generally are brought over only when it's convenient.

> Silly. If a person lies in such amounts about something like this, the "case" should just be dropped.

It really depends on *who* that person is (or who she is married to).

From the paragraph 15 in the IFUT letter:

"On the one hand she seems to be complaining that Dr Evans was manipulating her to establish himself in a good light with her husband. Yet on the other hand she accuses Dr Evans of sexual harassment. Such a combination is surely unlikely to say the least. The complainant's repeated references to

Seriously, grow up. As the paper in question demonstrates, the animal kingdom clearly has at least as many kinks as us humans do. It's not "sinful." Far from it -- if you believe in a deity, it seems obvious that this deity heartily approves of sex in all kinds of variety.

Or, if you can't deal with that, fine, believe whatever you want -- but stop retarding scientific and social progress with your puritanical ideals.

If you actually bothered to RTFA, or even just TFFirstPost, you'd realize that this has nothing to do with any puritanical impulse to censor. The matter at hand is an accusation of sexual harassment, one element of which is the article mentioned in the summary. In fact, the article is the only alleged action which appears to have actually taken place. If you want to get your panties all in a wad about something here, make it be that people are far too quick to punish on allegations of sexual harassment, without stopping to check whether or not any harassment actually occurred first. But no, you jump to the conclusion that this is somehow to do with sexual repression and religion and overbearing moralists. Stop, think, then post (maybe).

I also read the actual complaint and the mail exchange. Follow the link at the bottom of TFA.

The matter at hand is an accusation of sexual harassment...

And there's serious doubt as to the merit of that accusation. In fact, an initial investigation did not find the professor guilty of sexual harassment, and the single reason he was disciplined was this one event. But the woman didn't give him any indication that this was disturbing to her -- to the contrary, she laughed and requested a copy -- and was unwilling to pursue any resolution other than the direct, formal

So if I were aggressively courting a woman in a psychology or sociology department against her wishes and randomly gave her the complete research works of Dr. Kinsey [wikipedia.org], that would be kosher?

I read the complaint, replies and rest of the documents. Made me miss the first period of Montreal @ Philadelphia.

The lack of evidence is staggering and mind-boggling. Who knows what really has been going on, but what I do know that the investigators or the president don't know anything that would be warrant a two-year monitoring and counseling period.

So, how long until people realizes that this has gone too far. Censorship IS a problem. religion and corporate interests account for most of the censorship out there. Copyright is nothing but a form of censorship.

Can we finally outlaw religion and copyright? We really need to ban and persecute all forms of religious beliefs. And we really need to get rid of copyright.

To me it sounds like the good Dr. has done an admirable job of 'spin control'.

Read her allegations. They are just that, allegations, but dispense with Dr. Evans interpretation of events, and read it for what it is.

Dr. Evans engaged in what most of us would recognize as relatively sophomoric antics and flirtation - repeatedly engaging the complainant in discussions of a sexual nature, about Casanova, and ultimately showing her (I assume with much Junior-high-school snickering) an article on fellatio in Fruit Bats.

It IS possible that all of this was just an unfortunate set of coincidences, showing nothing more than an autistic-level of disconnectedness by Dr. Evans in not understanding the context of the repeated discussions.

Considerably more likely is the Dr. Evans had a serious boner for the alleged victim, and engaged in the sorts of feeble things 7th grade boys would do to try to 'spark' some interest in 'that hot girl' - with arguably similar results...she is shocked, disgusted, and goes running to the teacher crying "GROSS!".

If the subsequent dinner "double date" was accurately represented in the reportage, as well as a YEAR of such antics, she (and the school administration) are entirely vindicated.

I congratulate Dr. Evans on his ability to form a groundswell of public opinion in his behalf by mischaracterizing the event as some sort of Puritanical effort to "stifle academic freedom", a message which rings so readily in the ears of the political leanings of so many here on slashdot that its readily believed contrary to the actual reports. I'm sure he can look forward to many job offers from political parties looking for media consultants.

I'd however recommend to both of them that they perhaps make sure Dr. Evans isn't working with any women.

That sounds all very convincing except for the fact that when the external board looked into it Dr Evans was able to produce actual evidence such as emails which contradicted her account of what happened solidly enough that they threw out everything except the fruitbat paper.

also your interpretation doesn't make much sense as was pointed out in the final letter:

"On the one hand she seems to be complaining that Dr Evans was "manipulating"her to establish himself in a good light with her husband. Yet on the o

He wasn't even lecturing about it to students, if his protest letter is accurate. He was sharing it with a colleague, which I assume means another professor, a research scientist, or some other variety of non-student researcher, in the context of "an ongoing debate with the colleague in question about the relevance of evolutionary biology to human behaviour, and in particular about the dubiousness of many claims for human uniqueness". Seems rather relevant, and strange to object to.

" According to her statement, these include over-enthusiastic hugging and cheek-kissing, unwanted compliments about her physical appearance, lying to her about his qualifications, and spreading rumours about the special nature of his relationship with her and her husband. "

For which she provided no proof, and which were only mentioned in passing at the end of the complaint letter as an attempt to bolster her case. It also notes that the external examiners decided that the email exchanges between them that followed cast doubt on these allegation and did not uphold them.

In fact the only part of the complaint that was upheld was that he showed her a published peer-reviewed article in part of a debate on biology.

That is not the point in these cases unfortunately. HR departments esp ones with affirmative action offices can often take unilateral action against you without any proof at all. The amount of power alloted against individuals in institutions by these and other offices on campus that are answerable to no one is unbelievable.

We had a case here that involved a woman getting a man's disabled parking permit taken away because he honked at her once in a parking garage, which she claimed was harassment.

" According to her statement, these include over-enthusiastic hugging and cheek-kissing, unwanted compliments about her physical appearance, lying to her about his qualifications, and spreading rumours about the special nature of his relationship with her and her husband."

I read that part, but bear in mind that the investigation does not show any collaborations of these claims.

He strikes me as a doctor who is overenthusiastic in his field, and doesn'

This government is demonstrating it is still in the dark ages, where idiotic canned morals and ethics based on superstitious and largely fictional books still dictate the rules of state.

It's going to be a long, long haul getting rid of the "Sky Daddy" moralizers. Everywhere. In the meantime, the religiots will continue to look for contemporary alternatives to burning at the stake. Ruining one's career, and to some extent one's life... a fairly effective replacement, I'd say. A lifetime of suffering coupl

Can you think of a situation where violence is not inherently bad? I can think of many where it is the lesser of two evils, or just punishment, an understandable response, etc., but not any where it's actually something I would consider "good".

No need to go that far. There's no such thing as "good" or "bad" - just "good from my point of view" or "bad from my point of view."

To you, bacon and eggs is a good breakfast. To the chicken, it's genocide, and to the pig, it's murder.

You might enjoy "sport fishing". You say "I do catch-and-release, see how good I am?" The fish would be more likely to see it as wanton torture. You're inflicting pain on an animal that did nothing to you solely for

I'll bite. Not killing him is wrong if killing him is the only way to stop him. If you can stop him through lesser means and get him arrested and tried, then perhaps that's better. Letting a serial rapist, serial molester, or serial killer just go after people is what'd be wrong.

Understandable, yes, but it is still 'wrong'.... Ideally, you'd just disable him somehow and wait until the police show up and take him away. I'm not saying that I would have the self restraint needed to do this in the example you give, but it is the 'right' thing to do....

Vigilante justice can't be allowed in any case, since your average person isn't qualified (or impartial enough) to make a rational judgment of guilt and appropriate punishment. Again, I'm not saying that I'd have the self restraint n

Is eating fish or deer evil? What about farming cattle for meat? For milk? Swatting a mosquito is a sin to you? What about larvacide in your local decorative fountains and ponds? We really need to know what level of violence you consider alright before we can even discuss all violence. Are you just talking about human-on-human violence? Is human-v-human sport violence evil? I'm sure boxers, wrestlers, MMAs, football players, and paintball players would say that some level of violence is just clean fun.

Can you think of a situation where violence is not inherently bad? I can think of many where it is the lesser of two evils, or just punishment, an understandable response, etc., but not any where it's actually something I would consider "good".

CPR is a very violent, lifesaving act. When done correctly it usually breaks ribs.

Also, slicing people open with a knife is usually a bad idea, and yet some very smart people have distinguished careers doing just that.

Need a lot of reinforcement lately? If you resolve to discussing only the Amish after a post with "statistics", "generally", "very often"... (this is how you determine how some correlations work in the world on wide area and long term)

Well, what is the most notable organisation in Ireland condemning masturbation?

OTOH I can see why that would be certainly unrelated in any way; after all that organisation surely doesn't influence any people, doesn't manage to make some consider masturbation to be something "bad".

Hey, certainly the church doesn't run Irish legislature, right? You know, the one which would never pass blasphemy laws. It also certainly doesn't run law enforcement and pedagogical control institutions; it couldn't hide child abuses for few decades...

Masturbation was simply used in some other post, big deal. You really think it makes any difference?...

I could consider igoring all this if some people want to be stupid in private, without harmin

Sure, but not that common - with religions claiming to be the absolute moral guidance (which demonstrably doesn't really help even their "elite" to be more moral), with they having the bigger hold in places which certainly aren't "nice" and, if the opportunity is there, maintaining those places like that - they themselves give plenty of occasions.

Sure, if something bad happens (which only accidentally touches on the topics with which the church has a problem...) in a place where some religion has a very str

Someone doesn't have to believe in a "Sky Daddy" to accuse someone of sexual harassment nor to impose sanctions on someone for it. That may be the reason in this case. Really, though, the "fictional book" to which you're most likely referring is really horrible for feminist activists to cite. Women in it are generally objectified and even referred to as property. It's often the buckled-down religious zealots who are okay with men subjugating women and women accepting it in both Christian and Muslim societie

In any setting there are expectations of a professional level of behaviour, and he chose not to abide by them.

This guy is a Lecturer in Behavioural Science at a "supposed" School of Medicine!! What do you think his ***profession*** requires of him? What do you think he's paid to do? Is he required to discuss morally safe topics? Is he required to only talk about the Little House on the Prairie and other PG-Safe topics? What would be the point?

The transmission of diseases rarely limits itself to PG-13 safe topics. Vectors of disease transmissions are rarely that palatable, or clean. A behavioral scientist in a school of medicine is, of course, going to study and lecture about abnormal behaviors. Whatever it is: Eating feces, promiscuity, infections, fellatios, incest, etc. I wouldn't expect anything else from the talks of a behavioral scientist in a "supposed" School of Medicine.

No one in academia can claim not to understand where the line is drawn when interacting with other colleagues.

This word "academia", as accurate as it may be in this case, loses the most salient underlying context. This is not an Art School, or even an English Lit School, the Science of Medicine is an infinitely more practical, pragmatic, and less clean professional environment, than what you would normally find in other Ivory Towers.
And for good reasons. When someone gets squimish in Art History, nothing bad happens, but when someone gets squimish in Medicine, people die.

"It was just a joke" has long since ceased to be an adequate excuse for offensive behaviour.

And yes, the accused is taking issue with the "bad joke" interpretation. He's even taking to task one of the investigators for some of the things he said during the investigation. One would think that a panel of faculty members would be a little more willing to find out the facts, and interview witnesses (which they haven't done yet), instead of just editorializing their personal opinions and rendering subjective interpretations.

What does "cleared" mean in this situation? Did the disciplinary body decide the accusations were untrue? Did they decide they were true but did not rise to the level where legal action or official sanctions would be taken? That this was a case of "he said/she said", and that the best they could do is say, "We'll let this go, but we'll keep an eye peeled?"

keep reading all of the letters and you'll see that she failed to report the guy about the fact that she found it creepy, and maybe even exaggerated some of his behaviour.

the only thing that makes me vote for the guy is the fact that she refused apology and counselling when it would've been best. In my opinion, that girl is as shy as a mouse, and the guy is a bit of a jerk, but that ain't a reason to apply a formal complaint without trying to resolve the issue by their own means..

Is there some objective definition for "being creepy" in the workplace?

Creepiness is in the eye of the beholder. And absent a documented violation of some code of professional conduct, it's just the opinion of the accusor. So if such accusations are taken too seriously, it enables the least tolerant individuals to define the culture of the workplace. That's not a good thing, in my opinion.

1:He wasn't screwing the person.2:This wasn't an undergraduate or student of any kind.

This was another academic at the university.

And the medical faculty at that.

If a professor in the School of Medicine can't walk into another academics office and show them a peer reviewed paper about fruitbats that pretty much rules out showing them more shocking papers about anal warts and STD's.

He also showed it to a few other people on the way over and the other person in the office at the time.

You can shit on academic freedom all you want but if doctors can't talk about peer reviewed scientific papers which might embarrass the fragile sensibilities of someone where they work then they're not going to be able to do their job for fear of being accused of destroying the mind of the office wallflower.

I'm not shitting on academic freedom: go wild, but just ask yourself if you are advancing academic knowledge or just bullying a person.

Academic freedom doesn't mean you get to show "academic" pictures of erect penises to the girl scientist you want to sleep with, or pictures of genital warts to the girl scientist you feel is a slut. Feel free to hold a meeting on the topic and show the pics to those who turn up, but don't abuse your position. Oh, and "I showed it to other people and they weren't offended

Accusers are often no better people than the accused, and can just as easily cherry-pick facts or outright lie. To call the guy a creep because she made a complaint shows a bit of a bias in her favor. I'm not sure why she'd make a false complaint, but I know it can be done and has been done against other people who turned out to be innocent of any wrongdoing. In same cases, the accused didn't even do anything that most people would consider offensive. Since offense is in the mind of the offended, it can hap

Public fora are best for discussing published papers: talking genital warts at a professional group lunch is distasteful but above board; hitting a female colleague in her office with the same info may invite trouble. The question is always "Is info X in venue Y aimed to non-professionally affect person Z?" It's impossible to tell, of course, but a good start is a "narrowly-tailored" definition like the courts use for law: if it was constructed to

I love how you use "like being a dick" to paraphrase how a court would view it. It's funny because it's true. Your response reads like an Onion article or the script for The Daily Show.

One really difficult situation I've seen a few times is in same-gender sexual harassment. Sometimes gay guy hits on a straight guy or worse hits on a closeted gay guy in public on purpose. I've even seen guys do this to attempt to out someone against his will. Maybe a straight guy makes jokes about another co-worker or fellow

Apparently I am really lenient guy. I read the summary real quick and thought he got fired for blowing fruit bats in front of other people and felt it was a bit extreme of a punishment.

Of course that might have something to do with the fact "two-year period of intensive monitoring and counseling imposed upon him" and "fellatio in fruit bats" happened to be on top of each other (no pun intended) in bold and italics.

No. If all they could come up with was showing her the article, a scientific article... then the court is wrong, not him. He was cleared of the other charges. The only thing left was NOT creepy.

You know, it really pisses me off when people assume someone is guilty because they're in court, no more. Sure, there were charges, but they were NOT found to apply; and the only thing left was the COURT being creepy.

Sexual harassment is a matter of unwelcome sexual advances or offensive treatment based on sexual themes. If she led him to believe they were welcome at some point, then she needed to inform him that they were not and give him an opportunity to stop. Otherwise, nearly every break-up of a couple could involve retroactive "harassment". There are, of course, things you don't do in certain cultures until you're sure they're okay with the other person. There are others that are not always as clear, and it would

As you'd imagine he's not crazy about his career being fucked up by "sexually harassed co-worker" on his record with no warning or recourse.

simply saying that everyone was within their rights is true but at the same time it would also be true if she'd complained about an overly friendly handshake- she'd have every right to avail herself of a standard procedure to file a complaint and the president of the university would have every right to determine any course of action.

I'm from the US and not Ireland (and I'm not a lawyer here), but as I see it the problem here would be that the university doesn't have a right to do anything they want. They are responsible for the workplace they provide for their employees and the behavior of their employees. Once Employee A makes a formal complaint, the employer must investigate it and put Employee B on warning not to engage in the alleged behavior whether or not the alleged behavior actually happened in the past. Otherwise, the employer